My everyday fight to control diabetes through healthy habits and alot of sweat!

Friday, December 7, 2007

Big 10K on Sunday

Sunday I'm running the Joe Kliernman 10k in Central Park. To date this is my most important test as a triathlete and more importantly as a diabetic athlete. The 10k will be my longest competitive run to date so my nutrition needs to be spot on.

Lauren's plan for me is to have 20 - 30 g of protein and 40 g of carbspre race. I'll probably accomplish this by having eggs on toast. During the race I'm supposed to take in 40 - 45 g of carbs; real food will take too long to digest in a 10k so I'll be using Accel Gels. I'll pop the tab on my first Accel Gel about 10 minutes into the race (hopefully at mile mark 1.4 - 1.7) and then am supposed to follow that up every 15 minutes with another gel. I'll either have 2 or 3 gels during the race.

Coach Eggers has designated this as my pace race for marathon training. My goal time is somewhere between 48 - 54 minutes or between 8 and 9 minute miles. Should be fun!

15 comments:

Ed,That's exciting! You must be psyched. I really hope it's a good test for you--to see how it all goes, glucose wise and endurance wise. 10k is not too long, but long enough to give you a good chance to reflect on your peformance and the way your body respondds to your adjustments.

I would be skyhigh if ate that much carb for a 10K race. Heck, for a half-marathon even. Of course, I don't know how your handling everything so I can't use what I use to say that this seems weird. Well, it seems weird to me, but it might be perfect for you.

I use MDI. Typically my strategy for running and exercise is to do so without any bolus insulin in my system. I use Lantus, 15u once daily, for a basal rate of approx .625 units per hour.

I ran a half-marathon in Philly last month. Blood sugar was 121 mg/dl pre-race, I had about .3 units of bolus insulin from an injection at 4 AM, so I ate 8g of carbs before the race and then 8g at halfway point. Blood sugar at the finish, 2:16:25 (yeah, I'm slow), was 113 mg/dl.

I ran a 10K this past Sunday and didn't need eat any carbs during the race. It took me an hour to run that.

Of course, you've got to do what will work to keep your blood sugar levels safe, but I'm just surprised that you would need that much carbohydrate for 50 minutes of running.

flux - If you read through my blog entires you'll notice that I encounter major hypos when running. My basal rate totals 5.2 units of insulin per day so I'm much more insulin sensative than you are. If I were to start a run with a bs of 120 I'd only make it 9 minutes (you can check that blog post).

Each diabetic has different basal rates, bolus rates and reactions to exercise I simply put my information on the web to let people know how one diabetic accomplishes their athletic goals.

I understand that everyone has different rates. And I'm certainly unsure why everything is the way it is for diabetics. I'll admit I seem to be a bit unusual -- often I see other exercising diabetics write about how they need to drop basal rates on their pumps to avoid hypos.

I'm MDI so I don't get that luxury of dropping basal rates before exercise. So I've been trying to accumulate my own peculiar data and hypothesize what's going on. Maybe it's because I've got hardly insulin resistance and that because I'm so frequently active that exercise really doesn't have the effect it has on many others, opening the muscles up to more efficient use of insulin.

Still, if I were you, you might want to eventually reconsider the idea of needing to eat before a 10K race. Especially if you're doing that and popping in a bolus at the same time. If you're dropping a lot during exercise because your body loses insulin resistance, having extra insulin could be troublesome. Basically, it almost looks like you're setting up to be feeding a lot of insulin.

Personally, I would be troubled by that.

It's a difficult thing figuring all this stuff out sometimes. The best you can do is understand the theoretical principles and collect the data from your workouts. Then the more you can reduce variables, the easier it becomes. If you start adding to the variables and complicating things perhaps unnecessarily, then it seems like you end up where you are now -- carbs before running, 10 grams of carbs every 10 minutes.

The math is looking a bit complicated in a way that it may not need to be.

Flux - I don't bolus before I workout, seriously dude is this the first time you've read my blog??? I have to turn my basal off an hour and 1/2 before I run/ swim/ bike and need to ingest carbs with protein to slow down the carb absoroption.

I'd love to reconsider eating before a 10k but since I'd pass out in a seizure by mile 3 that kind of isn't an option. So there is no extra insulin in my body during exercise (there is less than at any other point during the day). Frequent exercise makes your body more acceptive to insulin not more resistant therefore any insulin in my body during exercise goes into overdrive and moves the sugars quickly.

Addiitonally, I train 8 to 12 times per week and I along with every other diabetic I know who trains for triathlons - including the world's best diabetic triathlete Jay Hewitt encounter the same problems I do. I'm not really sure where you're coming from.

There seemed to be some confusion. I would be quite wrong if I had said that exercise increases insulin resistance so if you were to read my previous comment again you'd see that I stated exercise makes people less insulin resistant and I was wondering why it seems that I don't exhibit that feature so prominently as you seem to and diabetic athletes you know.

Still, from what I've read in blog before about dropping your basal rates prior to exercise, that's a good strategy. I'm just wondering why is it that even with less insulin in your system, you are seeing such large drops due to exercise. Wondering about that is in no way a statement about me being right or you being wrong or vice versa, it is simply asking both of us to think about what's the best strategy for each individual and how do we find that strategy.

Okay? I apologize if you find me a bit odd or somehow strange for how I'll talk about handling things.

Flux no apologies necessary - was just pointing out that I do not bolus before working out and that I encounter some very bad lows when working out; thus the need for a high level of carbs early into exercise.

Physiological make up plays a large part in how much insulin our body utilizes and some of our pancreases decide to work every now and again (although there is no way to test for this). I have a more muscular frame than most other endurance athletes, muscle pulls sugars from the blood faster than other tissues and that may be a large reason why I have such a low tolerance for insulin. This is the fact that drove me to find a sports nutritionist and new doctor.

Awesome! Good luck! Is this your first race w/diabetes or your longest run w/d? Anyway, just wanted to say, don't be surprised if your pre-race adrenalin pops your BG's up a little. It happens to me every race unless I can somehow get to that happy zen place. It might not happen esp. w/your tendency to go low. But many people have observed the same thing. Let us know how it turns out!! And have fun.

I'm with you... I do a lot of running and have to decrease my basal to 40% about an hour before I start running, duration of temp basal is same as run duration - it means I'm on full basal before the run is over. (I should point out that I only do this on runs over 1 hour in length, otherwise I run on full basal with gels every 20 min) And I start by ingesting one gel (30g carb) and then about every 30 - 40 minutes while running. Not quite as often as you, but I'm probably less sensitive to the insulin as I take about 24 units /day in basal.

(and in response to your conversation with flux guy... are you also in your honeymoon phase? I seem to remember that you're fairly new to this wonderful diabetes stuff and that certainly plays a role in your insulin needs/production.)